Wednesday, 28 August 2024

Public Accounts and Estimates Committee

Report on the 2023–24 Budget Estimates

Tim BULL (Gippsland East) (10:23): I rise to make a contribution on the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee report into the 2023–24 budget estimates, and I refer to page 146, which relates to management of public land. I want to talk for a little while about a few feral animal issues that we have in our region at the moment. The first of those is an increasing wild pig problem. I knew of their presence in the area, but I did not realise just how widespread and significant they are. They have made their way that far south now that they are currently in the Tambo valley and Snowy valley, impacting farmers in that area. Apart from causing extraordinary damage to the landscape, they are also a very strong vector of disease. Our agricultural sector is extremely concerned about the impacts that they will potentially have on their livestock. I know there is some work going on in that space in relation to controls, but it is not commensurate with the level of the problem that we have. We certainly need a greater focus on controls in that area. I urge the minister to pick that up and put a few more resources into that issue, because it has the potential to have very, very serious impacts.

I have spoken in this chamber before about the wild dog program. The reason I raise it again is I know that a decision is imminent on its continuation. To even diminish this program, let alone get rid of it, would have significant consequences for our farming sector in East Gippsland and Gippsland more generally and also the north-east of the state. The spate of killings of lambs has increased over recent weeks. We have also had calves that have been killed, with the dogs eating their tongues out. We have had an alpaca killed in the last week by wild dogs. We have got footage being sent into my office of packs of these dogs pursuing cows and calves on farms. The issue that we have is you cannot control them only on private land; they must be controlled on the private–public interface. The doggers will tell you they need to trap these dogs on the tracks and trails adjacent to private property. You cannot trap a dog in an open paddock. Once they get onto farmers’ land, on private property, it is just way too late to control them. So we need to maintain that 3-kilometre buffer zone to allow the doggers to do their stuff, basically.

Some put up fencing as the answer: ‘Let’s invest in fencing.’ When you have got trees falling because the government will not allow clearing any more than 1 metre from a boundary fence, you have got trees falling over fences. We had a lot come down last night, actually. You have got samba deer, you have got wombats and you have got the pigs bringing fences down all the time. The fencing is one tool, but we need to be able to maintain every tool in the toolbox to be able to control these dogs. To let it go will be just a huge impact on our farming sector. We need to maintain it. We have currently got, through two petitions, around 5000 signatures that have been lodged. We will be forwarding them on to the minister in the coming weeks. But to think that you can diminish this by having an authority-to-control-wildlife permit provided to farmers is a ridiculous notion. An authority-to-control-wildlife permit is not the answer to this. We need to keep this program going.

While I am talking about authority-to-control-wildlife permits, the staff at the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action in northern Victoria may well have an application coming in very shortly from the member for Euroa. I just want to tell this story, because it is quite humorous. On arriving home late on the weekend, she was pursued by a wombat – attacked by wombat – after it was flushed out of her garden by her dog Alfonse. Alfonse – if you can picture this – flushes the wombat out of her garden. It pursued the member for Euroa, and she has pulled a few muscles in her body, which is causing her quite a bit of grief this week. She has not been in the chamber today. When I was talking to the member for Euroa about this and trying not to laugh too much, she told me that she has strained a whole lot of muscles in her body and torn a few, one of them being what she described to me as the ginie muscle. I do not know where that is or what that is, but she is in a lot of pain. I told her I am going to raise this in the chamber, and she had no issues with that at all. I have seen the damage wombats do when they attack, and I would hope that that authority is approved.